A federal judge yesterday awarded a former special forces commander $491,190 in back pay and damages because officials with the Library of Congress discriminated against her when they rescinded a job offer after learning she was transitioning from being a man to being a woman.

Excerpt: The new Equality Duty will require public authorities to advance equality of opportunity for transsexual people. For example, if a local authority notices that there are no support groups for people undergoing gender reassignment in their area it can fund a charity to help reach out to the transsexual community. The legislation will widen the definition of ‘gender reassignment’ to make it clear that a person does not have to be under medical supervision to be protected from discrimination and protect people who face discrimination because of their association with transsexual people, for example, as their partner.

Now that Allen Andrade is rotting in jail for the rest of his life, it's now time for the transgender community's attention to focus on the other alleged murderer facing hate crimes charges for killing a transwoman.

As I imagine most of you reading this blog know, transgender people face enormous amounts of bigotry and discrimination in the U.S.But what some of you may not know is that that there is also currently no federal legislation that protects against such discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender expression. And in most states, there is no such state legislation, either.

[CO, USA] [Video] Zapata Trial Coverage by Autumn Sandeen

Ques To Weld County DA: What Msg Did Jury Send To Trans Residents In Angie Zapata Trial Convictions?

terça-feira, abril 28, 2009

[Nuclear]Fugas nucleares em submarinos britânicosConhecem-se pelo menos três casos nos anos de 2004, 2007 e 2008 [USA] [Blog/Commentary] Transvestic Disorder and Policy Dysfunction in the DSM-VAt the Annual Meeting of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research this month, a “Provisional Report by the DSM-V Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders,” was presented by Chairman Kenneth Zucker and a panel of workgroup members.1 Ray Blanchard, who chairs the Paraphilias Subcommittee, summarized proposals for “Pedohebehpilic Disorder” and “Transvestic Disorder” in the DSM-V.2 While Charles Moser, Ph.D., M.D., and others have long raised concern about all paraphilia diagnoses in the DSM,3 the current diagnostic category of Transvestic Fetishism is particularly stigmatizing and defamatory for male-to-female (MTF) cross-dressers as well as many transsexual women.4 Unfortunately, Dr. Blanchard’s proposal of Transve6stic Disorder offers little to allay these concerns.

segunda-feira, abril 27, 2009

A SEX change air traffic controller has been reprimanded by bosses because her miniskirts were distracting fellow workers.Striking 6ft 4ins Jasmine Doherty was asked to tone down her dress by bosses at Atlantic House in Prestwick, Ayrshire.Jasmine started her working life as James Doherty but had a sex change operation in Thailand last year.

A leading academic has sounded an alarm against the growing trend of cross-dressers among boys and girls, saying that it is a “serious menace to society”.

Speaking in the monthly Lakom Al Karar TV programme, telecast on Friday night by Qatar TV, Dr Saif al-Hajari, the deputy chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, described the emerging trend of “manly women” and “womanly men” as a “foreign trend” which, he said, had invaded the Qatari and Gulf communities as part of the “globalisation winds”.

More than 60 national and international rights groups have slammed a measure making homosexuality a crime punishable by jail, which was signed into law last week in Africa's Burundi.They called on President Pierre Nkurunziza to go back on his promulgation of the parliamentary bill, which was not officially announced though confirmed Saturday by an aide.The groups, including international heavyweights Human Rights Watch, said that under the new criminal code promulgated by Nkurunziza on April 22, "same-sex sexual conduct becomes illegal for the first time in Burundi's history."

A TRANSEXUAL lesbian banned from attending an all-female party has had her discrimination case thrown out.Dr Tracie O'Keefe lost her three-year battle this week, after the Equal Opportunity Tribunal ruled the organisers of "Sappho's Party" - an all-lesbian event held in Adelaide - were within their rights to refuse her entry.

Meet Catherine Carlson, a transgender female fighting to get her birth name, Daniel Carlson, removed from her personal documents. See a photo and video below.Daniel Carlson had gender reassignment surgery some 28 years ago, and became Catherine Carlson. You can see a photo here. Today, she is in a very public battle to have her birth name, Daniel Carlson, removed from her legal records.

In July 2008, Angie Zapata, a young transgender woman, was brutally murdered in Greeley, bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher by a man she befriended on a social networking site. The motivation of her killer was clear: He hated gay and transgender people.

Why do cisgender people feel they have the right to disrespect transgender people by refusing to use or acknowledge the names we have chosen for ourselves?

Would you disrespect Cherilyn Sarkisian that way despite the fact she's gone by the name of Cher for several decades now? Cassius Clay changed his to Muhammad Ali, and only a right winger who hates on him will do so today.

domingo, abril 26, 2009

[UK]

Man jailed for knife attack on transvestiteA KNIFE attacker was jailed for six years on Friday after he tried to murder a bisexual transvestite who had made a pass at him.Scott Mackenzie threatened to cut off his victim's genitals when told his victim wanted to be a woman.

The Civil Rights Movement in America has, unfortunately, never been short of martyrs.Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Dr. King, Vincent Jen Chin, Matthew Shepard... Just a sampling of those who, in dying, helped push America toward greater social acceptance of "others."Add to the list 18 year old Angie Zapata.

A message of acceptance, tolerance and love came through Thursday night, as the mother of a murdered transgendered teenager talked to a crowd in Heath Recital Hall in Beach Music Hall at Emporia State University.The presentation by Sylvia Guerrero of Tracy, Calif., was moved from the Kanza Room in the Memorial Union to the larger Heath venue. The event was organized by People Representing Individuality and Diversity in Education (PRIDE) on campus.

Inner City Legal Centre is a community legal centre based in Kings Cross. We provide legal advice to people living in the inner city and eastern suburbs of Sydney. We also have a statewide Gay and Lesbian Advice Service and Transgender Advice Service.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who was elected to Congress in 2008 as an openly gay man, urged the passage of pending federal hate-crimes legislation in the wake of Wednesday’s conviction on murder and bias-motivated, or hate-crimes charges of the man accused in the brutal death of Angie Zapata, a transgender Greeley woman.

Republican opponents of the controversial "hate crimes" legislation that passed the House Judiciary Committee today claim Democratic supporters of the measure are not being clear about who exactly will receive special protections under the bill.

Last week was intense. It was the first time in years—since the passage of gay marriage in 2003—that the queer community had something to fight for in Alberta. The provincial government likely didn’t expect such a reaction when it tabled the 2009 budget and declared that gender reassignment surgery would no longer be covered by the province, but the reaction came and it was swift, loud and upset.

I clicked through the news section of Google and was met with a horrible yet unsurprising, story.Colorado teenager Angie Zapata was found beaten to death a few days ago by her date. Allan Ray Andrade became suspicious when Zapata refused to let him touch her sexually but was willing to perform oral sex. He grabbed her gentiles and discovered that Zapata was born a man. Andrade beat her first with his fists and then with a fire extinguisher, according to abcnews.com, saying that he thought “it” was dead until she tried to get up, and that’s when he reached for the extinguisher.

"Normally, I dress to thrill," he says. But on this evening, instead of the custom-made corsets and leopard-print bathing suit he favors as tops, the 60-year-old Stu Rasmussen—who prefers to be called not Your Honor or Mr. Mayor but rather Stu—has donned a demure red sweater that clashes with his dyed auburn hair.

Video footage showing transgender sex workers being verbally abused and threatened by a vigilante group aiming to "clean up" South Auckland is just one example of altercations happening on the streets every night, says the NZ Prostitutes Collective.

Author Mara Drummond notes:Could you be so kind to place a link to my book Transitions on your website? Everyone who has read it so far has given me really positive feedback. The one gender therapist I sent a preview copy to said she would recommend it to all of her patients.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is the most notoriously regressive clinic in the world for trans people. They force gender-variant children into reparative therapy and have in the past rejected over 90% of people seeking health services. An internal report has outlined some key issues:

domingo, abril 19, 2009

TRANSGENDER PEOPLE, ie those whose gender identity differs from their birth gender, have high suicide rates, poor experience of healthcare systems and professionals, and disproportionately low earnings, a new European survey has found.

The government of Alberta’s decision to stop health-department funding for future gender reassignment surgeries has, in just a few days, been seized upon as a convenient high-profile example of Conservative heartlessness and Neanderthality. Don’t all decent, progressive governments pay the full freight for these procedures? Well, as it happens, they don’t; the only other province that was hitherto covering the whole tab was Liberal Ontario, which agreed to do so only after a human rights commission ruckus in 2008.

My first impulse was to write about the fact that today was the National Day of Silence, which was first observed at the University of Virginia in 1996 and has been sponsored by GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network) since 2000. If you feel like helping them out, I am sure everyone would be thankful.But something else has been happening this week as well, out in Colorado. And this thing, a trial in the murder of a young transwoman, demands words, not silence. It has my focus, my attention.